That's called realism ;)
Meh, I've been in a real rally car and it isnt even close. Might be my computer sound then.
I hear him fine. In a real rally car your intercom allows you to hear him and you can turn that mic up or down as you like. If the intercom wasn't working you'd definately have a hard time hearing your codriver through your helmet over the engine, transmission whine and stones rattling the underneeth of the car on gravel, he'd really have to shout... but hey this is just a game. If it was a proper, true sim, we;d have a seperate audio line out for the codriver that we could listen to through our headphones while blasted by the other ingame sounds from speakers, :D